September 11, 2014 - 23:18
We worked under Riva's guidance; in the morning, in Sara's class, we'd done a project called "Ghost Parade,"
in which we represented our childhood bodies, and who we thought we were, growing up.
In this class, we were asked to begin to imagine--and then to draw--the "invisible body of desire":
what we would like like if we were completely unbound by an restrictions.
As before, this had to do with actions:
what we would do as an entitty, if all constraints--gravity, time, whatever holds us
back from being what whatever we might be--were lifted.
To get to this place, Riva asked us first to think to our last vacation, our last really enjoyable time...
and then to a longer vacation, one centered around what we always wanted to do....
and then to the 7th grade, when we were beginning to dream about what we wanted to be.
Are these states connected, or did they make a turn? Did what is desired change? And if so, why?
What might have happened in our lives, if we had gotten to do completely what we wanted to do when we were 12?
Thinking, then, about all constraints lifted, all choices totally open to us: what are our powers?
Start with the body: what would you be good at using?
And then: what parts of the mind would we be good at using?
We are looking now for the "pure picture," getting more abstract:
What are our bodies and minds and hearts good at doing?
Write down these powers, circle them.
Peeling back from every day to much older desires: what moves us at the essential level?
Imagine a planet full of these creatures: what might they look like? (flying, swimming, strong, invisible, how fast, what size?)
They don't have to be huminoid. Animals, plants, minerals, pure energy...
Build up from these powers: then add limbs, sensory equipment.
Build a body that lets you be that entity.
And so we began to draw.
This was about how to take a life story,
not keeping it in a flat footed place,
but becoming the core of something.